


aesthetically pleasing

by newamsterdam



Category: Free!
Genre: 30 Days of Rin, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Mirror Sex, Self Confidence Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-20
Updated: 2016-01-20
Packaged: 2018-05-15 02:02:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5767081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newamsterdam/pseuds/newamsterdam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes Rin awhile to realize that Haru is <i>always</i> watching him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	aesthetically pleasing

Rin doesn’t really notice, the first time. It’s hard to maintain coherent thought, what with the fact that Nanase Haruka is currently pushing him up against his bedroom door and grinding their hips together in a way that elicits a gurgling, undignified noise from the back of Rin’s throat. He’s shocked—thrilled—that Haru’s response to his ill-considered attempt to kiss him wasn’t to shove him away bodily and then pretend as though the entire thing had never happened. That probably would’ve resulted in another four years of silence between them, because how do you even live something like that down? But no, instead, Haru has his hands pressed against Rin’s cheeks, and the touch of his fingers is cold but Rin can deal, because Haru’s mouth is against his throat, and his collarbone, and the way he’s moving his hips is really, really distracting—

Haru pulls him back towards his bed, and Rin’s breathing stutters and his eyes flutter closed involuntarily. His brain feels like it’s shot-circuiting, but he still remembers to tug at Haru’s pants, pulling at the zipper and shoving them down Haru’s hips. Rin hisses in victory when he finally gets them off, because now he can stop coyly watching Haru heading from the pool to the locker room, memorizing the slope of his back and the jut of his hips, imagining what his ass looks like bare, what his skin feels like—now, he can just experience the real thing. (Rin doesn’t actually think he’ll stop looking, altogether. The watching, now, will be an enticement, and not another way the idea of Haru slowly drives him crazy.) Now, he isn’t really concerned with that Haru’s doing, except to notice that he hasn’t stopped touching Rin, and that must mean he’s doing something right. 

They’re both too young and inexperienced and desperate for it to be good, exactly, but when they finish rubbing off against each other Rin is breathing like he’s just done ten sprints and his head is spinning. He barely has time to feel self-conscious before Haru drapes an arm over his waist and says, a little demandingly, “Stay.”

So he does.

The second time, it barely registers. Rin wakes up to the morning sun hitting his skin through the open window and Haru’s fingers lightly tracing patterns up and down his thigh. Haru’s morning harness presses into his back, a reminder of the night before that sends a jolt through Rin’s system. When he notices that Rin’s awake, Haru moves to kneel over Rin, reaching for his cock with a question in his eyes. When Rin nods Haru begins to stroke him leisurely, and Rin moans, his eyes snapping closed again as Haru’s deep blue stare becomes too intense. He comes with Haru’s name on his tongue, and as he returns the favor Haru watches him, eyes half-lidded but alert. He looks as quietly pleased as a housecat sitting in the sun. 

It keeps happening, again and again. Matsuoka Rin, certified human explosion, manages to maintain some sort of relationship with Haru, who’s about as calm and unknowable as the ocean he loves so damn much. Rin, who feels like he’ll vibrate out of his skin at this development in his life, doesn’t stop to dwell on the details. 

Not immediately, at least. He wonders about it in quiet moments, the way that Haru will look a little dazed coming off an orgasm or blink very rapidly when he’s trying not to come. It probably shouldn’t matter all that much, but Rin is a self-proclaimed romantic. He’s watched all the movies (Japanese, English, and sundry) and read all the gushy manga and cried over sad love songs when he was in a particularly self-pitying mood. He knows how this goes, starting from the first kiss—when it means something, people close their eyes. They lose themselves in the moment, in how much they want the other person. At least, that’s the way Rin’s always imagined it. 

He’s not confident enough to assume that Haru is the exception to the rule, even if Haru is a weirdo about most things. And yet every memory he has of them together is punctuated by the impossible blue of Haru’s eyes, the intensity of his stare, which never wavers.

Rin may be physically incapable of letting things go, has a constant need to pick at the things that bother him until they open and bleed like wounds just scabbed over. So the next time they’re sitting up in Haru’s bed, naked legs tangled together as they make out lazily, he has to test his theory. Even the slightest touch of Haru’s lips has Rin’s lashes fluttering, but tonight he’s going to be observant. He refuses to close his eyes before Haru does, like some kind of weird game of love chick that Haru doesn’t know they’re playing. 

“Rin,” Haru says, five minutes in, “you’re thinking too much.” He sounds mildly disgruntled. He has Rin’s face in his hands again, kissing his cheeks and the tip of his nose before returning to his lips.

“…’m not.” He bites down on Haru’s lower lip, relishing the way Haru hisses at the sensation. But his eyes are still wide open, unnervingly so. 

Rin pulls away, switches off the lamp next to the bed. The room is left in darkness as Rin resumes his earlier position, reaching for Haru and licking a stripe down his throat, edging closer so that he can suck a mark onto Haru’s sun-kissed skin. 

So maybe he’s a little pissed when Haru suddenly shifts away, leaving Rin to fall forward against the pillows as Haru walks around the bed to turn the light back on. He crawls back in behind Rin as though nothing’s happened, wrapping his arms around Rin’s torso and tracing his fingers along Rin’s abs. 

“Haru,” Rin growls, “what the fuck?”

“You turned the lights off.” Haru presses a kiss to Rin’s shoulder, still gently stroking over Rin’s stomach in a way that makes him shiver.

“Maybe I wanted them off.” Rin is suddenly feeling much less agreeable, shifting away and turning around to face Haru fully. 

“I don’t.” Haru has that pinched look that Rin absolutely hates, because it means Haru’s trying to explain something that should be obvious but that Rin just isn’t getting. That look haunts Rin’s dreams, tells him Haru’s perfect and untouchable while Rin is… well, a mess, most days. 

“So you can keep staring at me?” Rin demands, and oh, _now_ Haru has the sense to avert his gaze, looking off to the side and mumbling something under his breath. “What?”

“I said _I like looking at you_.” Haru speaks with stressed patience, as though addressing a small child. 

“…what?”

“Do you not like looking at me?” Haru tilts his head, and Rin wants to scream because he knows Haru is fishing, now. There’s a feigned innocence in his tone when he asks, “Am I bad to look at?”

He throws a pillow at Haru’s head. “Oh, shut up. Like you don’t know you look absolutely perfect, all the time. You don’t even _try_ , and you look like that.” Rin waves his hands to indicate Haru’s face, and his arms, and then everything else. 

Haru edges forward, cards his fingers through Rin’s hair. “I like looking at you,” he says again. “You’re beautiful, Rin.” 

He says it so simply, without any pretense. As if it’s obvious. And Rin’s entire face heats up, and he hates that, because his skin will be all blotchy and red with blush. He covers his face in his hands before he can help himself. “Shut up,” he mutters. “At least say ‘handsome.’ What’s wrong with you?” 

Haru grabs Rin by the wrists, tugging his hands away from his face. “You don’t believe me.” He’s squinting, now, like he’s trying to figure something out. “You don’t mind when we’re swimming. I look at you all the time.”

Something warm blooms in Rin’s chest at that admission, but he quickly bites out in response, “Yeah, because it’s _swimming_. I’m competing, not getting naked _for_ you. Shit.” 

Swimming, at least over the past few months, makes him feel powerful, in control. Everything from his dive and his strokes to the way he pulls himself up out of the pool is built on confidence, because Rin is a swimmer. At the pool or in it, he’s in his element. There’s nothing to be self-conscious about. 

But somehow this conversation has turned around to be more about him than Haru. He doesn’t particularly like it.

“You don’t mind it when we’re naked,” Haru says, a statement and not a question. “Why can’t I look at you?”

Rin groans, flopping onto his back and feeling the entire bed jostle with the motion. He throws an arm over his eyes. “It’s not romantic. You’re supposed to close your eyes when you kiss someone you’re in lo—you like.” 

He feels Haru crawling up the bed to lay beside him, but he still startles when Haru pulls at his hand and leans over him, gaze intense and mystifying as ever. He comes in close and kisses Rin, slow and deep, and Rin can’t do anything but let Haru kiss him, and watch him, because when he’s touching Haru he never wants it to end.

Haru pulls back after a moment, lips wet. “Your eyelashes are long.” He traces the skin under Rin’s eye with his finger while Rin squirms. “And your nose wrinkles when I kiss you.” 

“Okay…?” Rin is dumfounded. 

“Rin. I like it.” Haru presses in close again, curls his body around Rin’s and tucks his head against Rin’s shoulder. “I like it when your skin gets redder and I can see your teeth when you bite your lip. I want to be able to see you.” 

It’s more words than he’s ever gotten from Haru, especially at moments like this. Rin sighs heavily and brings his arms up around Haru’s shoulders, pulling him close. 

“Idiot,” he mutters. “You see me all the time.” He can’t imagine a time when he won’t want Haru like this, so close he can feel their hearts beating against one another. It’s a kind of intimacy he never thought he’d have, when he was going through a painfully awkward puberty in Australia. He had grown in fits and starts, had become lanky before building muscle. There were weeks when he couldn’t stand the sound of his own voice, times when he hated that his hair and teeth and general foreignness made him stand out too much. But being with Haru makes the whole world seem calm, and that time drifts further and further away.

Haru huffs a little, his breath blowing across Rin’s skin. “Not like this.” 

Now that Rin’s eyes are open, now that he’s paying attention, he sees the intent in Haru’s eyes. He’s like a butterfly pinned beneath glass, entirely at the mercy of Haru’s gaze. He shivers, and then Haru’s pressing him back into the sheets. 

“You’re so embarrassing,” Rin whines, later, when he’s on the edge of orgasm and Haru hasn’t taken his eyes off of him even once. But he wouldn’t trade anything for the want in Haru’s eyes at that moment.

A part of him thinks that that will be the end of it. He’ll enjoy things his way, and Haru will do the same. And Rin is emphatically not going to think about why he notices so much, why the weight of Haru’s gaze is almost tangible, why when he’s close now he looks for Haru’s eyes, remembers him saying _You’re beautiful…_

Rin used to think that he and Haru were opposites—that in the same way Rin couldn’t stop picking at things, Haru would just let them wash over him, unwilling to engage with a problem to fix it. But that was a naïve assumption, or maybe a way of rationalizing the way that, bone deep, he feels that he and Haru are actually more similar than either of them admit to. 

A couple of weeks later, Haru leads him up the stairs while insistently tugging at his wrist, saying, “I want to try something.”

Rin is so stupidly, impossibly in love with him that he’ll say yes to just about anything. 

Haru kisses him openly, passionately, hands on Rin’s shoulders as he pushes him down onto the mattress. Rin trails his fingers along the length of Haru’s forearm, letting Haru set the pace. Haru tugs at Rin’s shirt, pulling it up over his head and smirking when Rin immediately lifts his hands to smooth down his hair, after. Rin glares up at him, unimpressed. 

Haru pulls off his own shirt, sheds the rest of his clothing at record speed and climbs onto the bed beside Rin. There’s something different about his energy, tonight. He’s restless, almost excited, the way he gets during the last few days before the weather turns warm enough for ocean swimming. 

The sensation is contagious, the nervous energy building under Rin’s skin as he pulls off his pants and folds them into a pile on the floor. He’s always had guttural, instinctive responses to Haru—the need to beat him, the need to be with him, the need to match him in all things. 

Haru rummages around in the drawer of the bedside table, shifts around on the mattress with lube in hand. Rin lies back, worked up but not fully hard, yet, watching Haru with an expectant expression. It’s when Haru shifts to one side that Rin sees it. 

“When the hell did that get here?”

Haru turns around, sees it too. He shrugs like it’s no big deal.

But it is a big deal, it’s a huge fucking deal, because propped up against the wall opposite Haru’s bed is a full length mirror. It looks cheap and light, but the reflection is clear. Rin stares at it, sees his own wide eyes and mildly panicked expression. The way the mirror is angled, it sees everything on the bed. 

Rin pulls his knees together, bites on his lower lip. “Why is that here?”

The mirror catches the sheen of Haru’s hair as he turns again to look at it, the pull of his brows when he gives it a considering look. “I want to try something.”

It’s the same words he’d used before. Haru’s like that—repeating himself in simple statements, waiting for the rest of the world to catch on to the different meanings he gives repeated sentences. Rin is still catching on, still chasing after the emotion and affection and desire that he knows Haru has for him, but can’t always see. Sometimes, Rin thinks that’s a failing on his part; other times, it seems like a limitation of Haru’s. 

Haru is on his knees, looking at Rin with anticipation. In the mirror, Rin can see the lines of his back, the tanned skin that he so loves. If Haru were over him, and Rin dragged his nails down Haru’s back, would he be able to see that movement in the mirror? And afterwards, the split-second of reddened skin that proved that he was there, leaving his mark on Haru? 

He’s licking his lips, he realizes, his body flushing at the thought. 

“Rin?”

He swallows. “It’s not a terrible idea.” He lets the moment hang, desire and anxiety coiling tight in his stomach. “We can try it.”

Haru flashes him one of those small, secretive smiles and Rin’s heart melts. Haru leans down over Rin’s stomach and kisses him there, making Rin squirm. Haru’s always kissing him in strange and unexpected places, like there isn’t an inch of Rin that he doesn’t want to touch. Haru kisses along the line of his hipbone and down to his thigh, one hand reaching up to slowly stroke Rin’s cock. Rin groans and leans back against the pillows, loses himself to sensation for a few minutes before Haru’s sitting up again. 

“Give me your hand,” he says, reaching across the bed for the lube he’d abandoned. 

“What?” But Rin holds out his hand, anyway. 

Haru’s thumb rubs small circles against Rin’s palm before Haru pours lube over Rin’s fingers. “I’m not doing everything myself.” He huffs, impatient. 

Rin rolls his eyes, but the Haru is pushing his hand back towards him, motioning between Rin’s legs curtly. And oh, that is an idea. Rin feels his face heat up even as he moves to comply with Haru’s implicit instructions, adjusting his position on the bed to make the angle easier. He makes the mistake of glancing towards Haru and sees himself in the mirror—his skin pale under the lights of the room, except where blooming red colors his cheeks, his neck, down his chest. But there’s also the fact that he’s reaching down to finger himself, had thought nothing of it until he’d seen how he looks in that mirror. 

“ _Shit_.” 

Haru looks back at him, eyebrows lifting. His voice is calming, concerned. “Are you alright?”

“Just fine,” Rin bites back. His mood is already teetering too close to vulnerability, and it’s far too early for that. It almost a matter of pride, when he reaches down and presses into himself with one finger, his breath jolting at the feeling of intrusion. He likes the feeling of Haru’s fingers best, he’s found, because they’re long and Haru’s body temperature runs slightly cold, and the contrasting sensations keep him too distracted to really think about the physicality of it all. But he knows himself, too, and it only takes him a moment to even out his breathing and start stretching himself in earnest, short moans escaping from the back of his throat when the pads of his fingers run up against the wall of muscle. 

His head lolls back and his eyes flit around the room, landing on Haru. He’s leaning forward, hands against his knees, and his eyes are wide and enraptured. Rin’s motions stall out for a moment, but when Haru tilts his head in question he starts again. And Haru… Haru just watches him, but it doesn’t make him feel uncomfortable. He watches Haru watching him, feels like he’s floating outside his own body until his fingers brush against his prostate and he groans. 

It goes on for a few minutes, and then Haru is pulling his hand away and replacing it with his own, slick with lube and cool to the touch. Rin shivers as Haru tests his thoroughness, stretching him around two of his fingers and then three. 

“Are you going to—” He’s panting, skin feeling impossibly warm. “ _Do_ anything else, or are we—going to just do this all night?”

Haru shoots him one of those fleeting smirks, again, then pulls back. He uses his slick hand to grip himself, stroking his cock leisurely as Rin watches him. He can see the rhythm of Haru’s movements in the way reflection moves in the mirror—he can look up and see Haru head-on, turn to the side and see the expanse of his back and the curve of his ass. It’s—a lot. Rin breathes heavily, whines softly when he realizes he’s only getting visual stimulation. It’s not enough. 

Haru fixes him with a challenging look, and Rin feels like electricity is running between them. Haru is manhandling him, now, tugging him closer until Rin is straddling him, Haru sitting at the edge of the bed. This is something they’ve done before—just not very often. Rin prefers to be lying back, finds it romantic and relaxing. But there’s an appeal in this, too, he thinks as he adjusts. It takes a moment to guide Haru’s cock to his entrance, a tense moment as he eases inside of Rin and Rin grits his teeth against the dull pain before he adjusts. 

He looks up at Haru, who’s looking at him as keenly as he ever does. And that’s when Rin realizes what he’ll see if he looks past Haru, to the mirror. 

He sits stock-still, trying to ignore the feeling of lube slowly dripping down his thigh. 

But then Haru is leaning forward and kissing his cheeks, moving his hips in slow, rhythmic movements. Rin sighs heavily and presses his face against Haru’s neck, lets Haru slowly pick up speed as warmth spreads through his entire body. It’s almost subconscious when Rin starts moving, himself, picking up on Haru’s rhythm and increasing the pace, angling for more stimulation against his prostate.

He keeps his eyes closed, his face hidden. His breath comes in shorter and shorter gasps, harsh and loud. He is fundamentally unwilling to open his eyes. If he does, he knows he’ll see his own reflection in the mirror. He refuses to actually look at it, but it’s impossible not to imagine.

His face is red, heated. His head tips back when Haru thrusts up harshly. He reaches out and clenches his fingers around Haru’s hips, leaving marks. 

Haru rolls his hips, movements slow and languorous. Rin has picked up the momentum, straddling Haru’s lap while he’s naked and open. He’s supremely aware of the mirror, but can’t bring himself to open his eyes. 

He bites down on a whimper, feels Haru’s cool fingers against his face, stroking over his cheek bones.

“Are you okay?” Haru’s voice is shaky, because he’s never as unaffected as he pretends to be, and most of the time, like this, he doesn’t even bother pretending. 

Rin nods his head but his teeth are digging into his bottom lip. He feels taut all over. His hips grind desperately against Haru, because he wants to _feel_ him, wants to know that he’s here and he’s as close as Rin is, as undone and uncontrolled and messy.

He clenches involuntarily and Haru gasps, leaning forward to kiss Rin for everything he’s worth. 

Rin opens his mouth to the kiss, giving Haru everything, but he still won’t open his eyes. He moans and feels Haru’s hands stroking up and down his back, over every dip of his spine. 

Haru inhales sharply, lips against Rin’s and then down his jaw, and Rin focuses on guessing where Haru’s lips and fingers might touch him next. He loosely trails his own hands up Haru’s back and then into his short, soft hair. Haru does something sharp with his hips and Rin clings to him even more tightly, arms around him, moaning, “Yes, Haru…” 

“Open your eyes, Rin,” Haru murmurs. 

“No.” He stubbornly sets his jaw and clenches his teeth. And then Haru stops him, hands on his hips to hold him still. The abrupt loss of friction has him gasping and flailing, but Haru has actually been working on his weight-training and holds him fast. Rin whines pathetically and feels his entire body heat up, flush across his face and down to his chest. 

One of Haru’s hands is against his neck, the other still firm at his hip. “I want you to see,” Haru says softly. “You’re always making me look at you, you know.”

And Rin _does_ know, because ever since he can remember he’s wanted Haru to look at him, to pay attention to him, to acknowledge him. In some messed up way, this is what he’s always wanted. And he’s not some insecure kid, anymore, just a young man with a normal amount of insecurity, but what Haru’s suggesting is too intimate, too close. 

“Haru,” he protests softly. 

“You’re so beautiful, Rin,” Haru breathes out, and he sounds dreamy and drunk and not at all unaffected. “I could just sit here and watch, all day.”

Wait, what? Rin’s brain tries to process the words, because there’s no way that Haru means—

“Haru.” Rin tries to shift his hips, but Haru holds him fast, won’t let him. “Move.” 

“Not until you open your eyes,” Haru says. 

Rin hisses through his teeth, digging his fingers into Haru’s shoulders. “Haru. _Move_.”

Haru lifts his hips just barely, enough to make Rin shudder but not enough to get him anywhere close to release. Haru is running his fingers through Rin’s hair with one hand, kissing him hard with lips and teeth.

“Haru. Haru, please.” And Haru must be moved by the pathetic strain in his voice, because he shifts his hands and Rin can finally move, can finally clench down and fuck himself on Haru like his body is screaming for him to do. 

Haru is murmuring something into his skin, soft words that Rin can feel but not hear. Haru lifts his face just an inch, close to Rin’s ear. “Love you, Rin.” 

His face feels like it’s on fire, but something blossoms inside him as he hears those words, and his eyes open wide. And he sees himself, spread open and clinging to Haru, face pink and red and hair sticking to his face with sweat. In the moment before he comes, he looks at his reflection’s face and sees that he’s smiling.

He feels dizzy, the world shorting out into a white static. 

Haru is whispering in his ear again, and Rin comes down off his orgasm and collapses against him. Haru grips his shoulder and rolls them over to fuck Rin into the mattress. He thrusts twice, three times, then four, and then he’s coming himself, and Rin is dizzy with sensitivity, his breath hissing out from between his teeth. 

Haru is lost to own orgasm for only a few moments. Then, he’s tracing patterns against Rin’s skin, again, and kissing him all over, and Rin is shaking with want and embarrassment and something like euphoria. Haru’s gaze is hot and weighty, and Rin wonders if he is looking at the flush of his skin or the come splattered across his stomach or the stupid expression on his face, eyes unfocused and hazy. 

Rin reaches for Haru’s hand and catches it clumsily, brings it to his lips and kisses Haru’s palm. “Love you, too,” he says. He keeps his eyes open so he can see the way Haru smiles in response.


End file.
